Monday, June 13, 2011

The Donkey's Lot- 6th April 2007, Easter

JERUSALEM used to be the highest point above sea level in the world. All of the plants that breathed its temperate air seized their nourishment from the lofty altitudes. And the voices of the men had bell like tones to them - resoundingly clear into the purest of expirations.

This was of course, a very long time ago.... long, long before - and a long time to come, also.

Can you picture a world that bore the spirit of Man in faithful tenement? This was a time, an age resplendent in possibility and pure joy - a noble exactment of life itself - not a parody of madness it was later to become.

The World was not always deceased of itself. Much began and evolved according to every plan and hope laid out in Heaven. And still we see evidence in the webbing life spiralling into existence upon itself, in the paradoxical biologies succinct unto themselves yet combining in cooperative play.

This World was not always in tension, in fear, holding its breath with dubious surmise. Its people, the people, were not born in doubt of their lives - and even sickness itself had a charity to it, effecting neither pain nor death, but just change.

The World itself paraded the Heavens as the young pride of it all. Look now, look there! The Christly enterprise (like a much loved child) is showing His dance, while the archaic Archai look on with aged affection.

And later when the people sought Tibet and their Shangrila, it was Jerusalem that bespoke their inspiration. And when all men are moved to justice, to striving and to mutual regard, it is to Christ that they cleave, whether knowingly or not.

And so it was, as it had to be, that He came to that place that once breathed for all - to the heart of the World, the broken heart of the World, now dusty and detached, and totally unrecognizable.

He had traveling companions that knew Him well. They were not strangers, but most had living memories of places and realms all far happier. Perhaps to these golden souls, it was accepting a commission in the worst science fiction show - because all of them knew of eternal endurance, each had their purpose happily infected by Him - and they had been prepared in some measure for the trials of the worst.... but were being transported into a time where they were so soon to forget themselves.

And this was the greatest enemy, as is still is today - Man forgetting himself; entering the gates of the World through birth, and forgetting. Becoming challenged and giving up and giving in, forgetting. Fumbling through and navigating not. Forgetting - this is the greatest afflicting sin of the World. This is something most difficult to prepare for and then work with. Dementia gravitas. Oh dear, my dear, the bleached membranes - where to now?

There is a saying that most times you find something in the last place you looked (because you stop looking after you find it) - but also, sometimes you find something in the very last place you would think to look, for its unlikelihood of being there. Well this was very true and most surprising.

The donkeys had it all the time. If you pat their broad flat furry snout and meet them eye-to-gentle-eye, you can feel it in their presence. They held the memory. When men forgot the times of Grace, and departed themselves and being true to their character divine, when the golden ages ceased to saturate their being, it was the donkey that lived the memory of that time.

And although it is not a working knowledge, there is a living wisdom that followed. Creatures high and low, water sod and in the dirt - beasts, birds and minnow, have the certainty living within their daily consciousness and are appeased by it, as it connects them to a spiritual design they know also.

Yes, hidden in the mountains shoulder, stirring, panting, moving in - this the collective spirit of the Kingdom of Animalia....the deepest recollections brought to currency....of where Self is placed in relation to the All.

Yes, yes, it does not bring 'peace' amongst them or continuity, or community - for that is beyond their homogeneous dissipation. However, and more important than that, this Kingdom realizes much that was then lost sorely to Man.

In a roundabout way too - if you have followed this far - our own bodies also have this consciousness which is current and self-realizing also. The 'animal' which is the body, has this sacredity that the donkey and his fellows share.

From this is a small insight as to why folk try so hard to enter into an animal/body consciousness at times, and the royalties it holds. And there are issues of and around this that in the end go nowhere. Because even though we can understand further how hard a man can press to go back into the animal, he will only come to the animal's knowledge and not that of his own. The mixing of species has never been propitious (a combination of prosperous and auspicious) and in this, the deepest aspect, more terrible than we can know.

Man must know Man, and whilst the animal has his peace and sanctity of presence, we cannot arrive at ourselves through bestial endeavors, for this negates the very purpose by the definition of its own - namely self consciousness, self realization, self awareness, self recollection and so on.

Yes still, it is glad to know that the creatures were still intrinsic to themselves and bear the memories of the golden times past, having portals into those worlds besides - even though ourselves are dislocated from it all.

So it was and became, that the flesh of Man had to become reformed - that our Communion cup does not seek its way to the mind but to the flesh; and this is because it is there where change is needed now; and here also the only place where change can effect.

The receiving of Christ's Body into that of our own, is that way to bring our own self and higher mind into our earthly existence. We cannot piggyback the animal's bliss, or that of our animal body's life and lore - and of ourselves there is little connection into the world, our incarnating stops where it should not - but here in Communion, there is Christ Himself reconnecting the nerves, through His Body and Blood, replacing the Animal.

In Victorian times there used to be 'samplers' where ladies would do cross-stitch pictures - usually of a cottage with flowers, around which would be the alphabet and perhaps numbers. The stitches would be even, the colors bright and cheerful, and a sense of everything being in its place.

Although depthless, these pictures portrayed an infantile sense of placing and place (in a good way) that all was proper, and the image was cheerful. This sense of propriety really manifests strongly within the Animal Host - they live fixed expectations well, and do not venture outside of them.

Men by nature are contrary to this - and the nature of an animal is quite dissimilar to that of a man. This is one reason contributing to their harboring their spiritual keys so well, and also an insight as to why we cannot come to our own through them.

Men can definitely feel closer to the spiritual through experiences with animals (or their own animal) because there is a link which is closer than they can personally achieve readily through that of their own singular consciousness within the world at present.

And second to that seeking, and equally as deleterious, becomes the combining and communing with those plants which can speak to a man of their relationship with the spiritual worlds - bringing his consciousness therefore up and into the being of the plant's commune with life and beyond.

And it is that both the plant and the animal have very strong callings and persuasions to most men and women who understandably seek out their reconnection with their own true natures and their divinity in recollection. It is no wonder that folk will go to the lower kingdoms when their own way home appears gone.

2 comments:

"But in the Mysteries into which Christ sent His message, it was still known that men once possessed a sublime knowledge born of the working of material substances, born of metabolism. No attempt was made to awaken the old matter-born knowledge of spirit-reality in the manner in which this had been done in primeval humanity, nor in the degenerate way subsequently pursued by hashish-eaters and others with similar habits in order to acquire, through the workings of matter, knowledge not otherwise accessible. An attempt was made in quite another way to awaken this matter-born knowledge, namely, by clothing the Mystery of Golgotha in ritual, in mantric formulae, above all in the whole structure of the Mystery as Revelation, Offering, Transubstantiation, Communion, in the administration of the sacrament of the Eucharist in bread and wine. It was not poisons, therefore, but the Lord's Supper, clothed in what arises from the mantric formulae of the Mass, and from its fourfold membering: Gospel, Offering, Transubstantiation, Communion. For the intention was that after the fourth part of the Mass, the Communion, actual communion among the faithful should take place, with the aim of giving an intimation, at least, that thereby a knowledge leading to what was once achieved instinctively by the old metabolism-born knowledge, must be re-acquired.It is difficult for men to-day to form any conception of this metabolism-born knowledge, because they have no inkling of how much more a bird knows than a man — although not in the intellectual, abstract sense — how much more even a camel, an animal wholly given up to the process of metabolism, knows than a man. It is, of course, a dim knowledge, a dream-knowledge, for degeneration has entered to-day into what was contained in the metabolic process of primeval man. But on the basis of the earliest Christian teachings, the sacrament at the altar was conceived as a means of pointing to the need to re-acquire a knowledge of the eternal nature of the human soul." (RS, The teachings of the risen Christ, GA 211)

In those mysteries into which the resurrected Christ sent His message there still existed the knowledge that in ancient times the human being possessed the highest knowledge of matter, “metabolic knowledge.” The way was sought to reawaken this ancient knowledge of matter — although not in the way of primeval mankind, nor in the way of the “hashish-eaters,” who wished, through the effects of certain material substances, to gain a knowledge which cannot be obtained without them. The way to reawaken this ancient knowledge of matter was striven for, but in a different manner, namely through clothing the Mystery of Golgotha in certain mantric forms, chiefly in the structural forms of the mystery of Revelation, Offering, Transubstantiation, Communion, by presenting the Holy Supper through the giving of bread and wine to the worshipper. Poison was not given, but the Holy Supper was offered him, wrapped in the mantric formulas of the Holy Mass, in the fourfold form of the Mass — Gospel, Offering, Transubstantiation, Communion. For after the Communion, after the fourth part of the Holy Mass, the actual Communion of the Faithful occurred, and an endeavor was made to give them at least an intimation of the fact that a certain wisdom must be regained which leads to the goal of ancient “metabolic knowledge.” The human beings of today can hardly imagine this “metabolic knowledge,” because they have no idea how much more, for instance, a bird knows than a man — although not in an intellectual, abstract sense; or how much more even a donkey knows than a man, a donkey, which is an animal living entirely in the metabolic system. It is, however, only a dull knowledge, dreamlike knowledge. Today there exists a degeneration of what primeval man once possessed in his metabolic system. It was out of the first Christian teachings, however, that the Sacrament of the Altar was conceived in order to lead mankind to regain a knowledge of the immortal of the human soul.

At the time when the Christ, who had passed through death, taught His initiated disciples, men were unable to attain such knowledge by themselves. He imparted it to them. And during the first four Christian centuries this knowledge continued on alive, in a certain way. Then it grew sclerotic within the Roman Catholic Church, for although the latter retained the Holy Mass, it had no longer a proper interpretation of it. The Holy Mass — thought of as a continuation of the Last Supper as it is described in the Bible — has naturally no meaning, unless a meaning is first inserted into it. The establishment of the Holy Mass with its wonderful cult, its imitation of the four mystery-degrees, is to be traced back to the fact that the resurrected Christ was the instructor of those who were able to receive these teachings in a higher esoteric sense. During the subsequent centuries only a childlike sort of teaching about the Mystery of Golgotha could remain. A faculty was developed which for the time being concealed the knowledge of this Mystery. Human beings had first to become fully acquainted with all that relates to death. This marked the first medieval civilization. - Rudolf Steiner http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/TC4814_index.html